What Is Hard Work: Everything You Need to Know for More Success

What do you believe is the key to success: hard work or smart work?

Modern Instagram entrepreneurs advertise the possibility of working 4-hour workweeks whilst living in a big mansion including a swimming pool and a brand new Ferrari in the garage.

But is it truthful? Can you work 4-hour weeks and earn an income that’s far beyond average? In other words: is there still any value in hard work?

In this article, you’ll learn what hard work is and how much it contributes to your success.

Let’s dive in!

The Value of Hard Work

Hard work is the idea that you work more hours than the average person in your field. And that within these working hours, you go work hard on your craft. 

A great example of someone who works hard is Elon Musk. Musk puts in at least 80 hours of work every single week and is known to make over 120 hours. 

Why? 

Musk puts it this way: “Nobody changes the world working 40-hours a week.” 

In other words, the more hours you put in, the faster you get where you want to go.

This sounds pretty obvious and it is. But to profit from the value of hard work, there’s another important element to look at.

Smart work.

You see, working hard without working smart is like hitting a nail with your fist instead of using a hammer. You might go hard at it, but the process takes you much longer.

In other words, working hard isn’t a great strategy on its own. Being thoughtful about your work is as important as working hard.

But when you look at Instagram entrepreneurs it’s tempting to think that you can work smart enough to game the entire system. 

So is there enough value in hard work to make it worth the effort?

Why Hard Work is Important

The fact that you get more done if you work more hours a week, should not surprise anyone.

And the fact that most successful people in the world work more hours than the average person, should tell you something about the correlation between hard work and success. 

Look at the work ethic of these highly successful people: 

• Jeff Bezos put in 12-hour working days during Amazon’s early days and did this 7-days per week;
• Venus and Serena Williams woke up early to play tennis before school and came back after school for their second session;
• Tim Cook is the first person in the offices of Apple and the last one to leave;
• Mark Cuban didn’t give himself a holiday for the first 7 years of his business;
• Michael Jordan’s insane work ethic is why he is such a legend now, according to his coach Phil Jackson;
• Kobe Bryant would practice his basketball skills every hour of the day;
• Gary Vaynerchuck worked 19 hours a day for the last 20 years.

What these examples show you is that you’re likely to increase your chances of accomplishing real success when you’re willing to put in hard work.

But there’s something much more to consider first, and that’s self-awareness. But we will get to that in a second.

The point is this: if you’ve put in some thought into creating a plan of action, then hard work is the essential next step to get there as fast as possible.

Because when you do the exact same work as anyone else, those who spend more time doing it will fail faster, learn faster, and ultimately, succeed faster.

So, what’s up with the new era of quick-fix entrepreneurs?

Unless they got money from their parents, I doubt that they made it 4-hours a week. Success takes effort. And they probably put in their fair share of work.

Even if they live a 4-hour workweek lifestyle right now, it’s unlikely they started that way. Success is a skill that takes a lot of failures and personal growth to develop. And if they make that much money at a young age for real, they must have put in some hard work.

The message is this: if you want to achieve success, then expect that you’ve to put in some effort. Because if it was that easy, many more people would live that lifestyle.

And when you expect hard work, you anticipate the journey ahead of you much better. That way, you won’t feel frustrated when life doesn’t go your way on 4 hour-workweeks. 

Which brings us to the most important element of hard work.

Know Yourself to Go Hard

Knowing yourself is one of the most valuable elements to become successful. 

Because what if you make millions a year and have a great relationship, yet still feel unhappy about what your every day looks like?

It’s the story of many bankers in the world of finance. I almost got sucked into one of these jobs myself. Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with a job in finance if you like it. I just didn’t enjoy it much and that’s on me.

That’s the first part of the equation: do you love what you do?

The second part of the equation is to learn what makes you feel successful. What does happiness mean to you?

Because the Bezos and Vaynerchuk’s in the world have a hunger for work. They love the process that they go through. This is what Gary Vaynerchuk says about his 19-hour workdays:

Working 19 hours a day every day for the last 20 years has been easy for me because it’s the only gear I ever knew. I sucked at school so it was my only option.

– Gary Vaynerchuk

So what if you don’t have that work ethic naturally? 

Look, hard work is something you can develop. Find something that you love to do and hard work will enable you to make progress, grow as a person, and give you results that you desire.

Sometimes you need to make the first move and start doing what you should be doing. And when you do that, you’ll start to love the process itself.

Yet, most people don’t make that first move. Because we live in a society that demands pleasure now. And we would rather binge-watch our favorite series all weekend than work.

So what if you rather watch Netflix or play video games?

Then use your pleasures as levers to drive success. 

Instead of watching Netflix all day on Sunday, decide to put in some work on your side-hustle during the day. And then celebrate that you took action and watch Netflix as part of your night routine.

When you do that you’ll feel great about your productivity that day AND you do the activity that you love doing so much without feeling guilty. 

Not everyone needs to become a billionaire or change the world and work 80+ hour weeks. 

But everyone must figure out what success means to them. And when you know what success means to you, create your life around that.

Hard Work VS Smart Work

We already touched on the importance of both smart and hard work. And the answer to the question of which one is more important for success is this: they’re both important.

Let’s show that with an example. You work in a field and grow crops for a living. 

You put in long hours and water and nurture the crops every day. But when the time comes to collect the fruits of your labor, there are no grown plants nor fruits. 

You worked so hard at it, that you didn’t notice that you planted too many crops. And none of these caught enough sunlight to grow and give you the fruits of your hard labor.

It feels frustrating when you put so many hours into a task and do not get the anticipated results – even despite learning something in the process.

Your neighbor farmer is much smarter but lacks work ethic. He planted his seeds more thoughtfully so that the seeds could catch enough sunlight. 

Yet, he failed to nurture the crops every day and the crops died in the process.

In conclusion, you need both to work hard and work smart. 

That’s why we spend so much time on setting goals and a bigger vision for your life.

A Note on Talent

Ever heard someone tell you that you need the talent to succeed?

Yes, talent might give you a head start. But talent without drive isn’t going to get you anywhere.

You can outwork those with talent that also work hard. There are many examples in elite-level sports that prove this.

Here I wrote my full view on hard work versus talent.

Benefits of Hard Work

We already touched on some of the benefits of hard work. But there are a couple of unexpected yet very beneficial gains from hard work.

Let’s take a look at each of the benefits for your personal growth:

1. Brings you clarity
2. Gives you confidence
3. Makes you feel great
4. Helps you to stand out
5. Helps you to achieve goals faster

Benefit 1: The Act of Doing Helps You to Get Clarity

My first website about personal development lacked structure. I wrote about several different topics. One week you could read something about the spiritual journey and the next week something about saving money.

It made no sense for the reader.

And eventually, it didn’t make sense for me either. 

But although it was a random blog about personal development, it taught me lots of other things:

• I learned about Search Engine Optimization – which I then pursued as a career.
• I learned about building websites – which helps me to understand how the internet works.
• And I learned what topics I loved writing about the most, which is why you’re reading this today.

Too many people sit idle when they don’t know what to do while taking action is the secret to bring clarity to your life.

Without experience, you just don’t know. 

That’s why you should try many flavors in life. And hard work can help you to collect these experiences faster.

If you want to find clarity fast, start doing. 

Benefit 2: Experience Gives You Confidence

Experiences give you confidence too. With my personal website, it gave me confidence that I knew how to go through the same process again with a new website.

But let’s take public speaking as another example.

It’s one of those things that people fear the most. In fact, most successful people who speak in public for a living still feel nervous the moment before they jump on stage.

So how do they do that?

They take action regardless.

They face their fears and they collect the experience. Yes, they may fail. But they’ll learn faster than those who don’t jump on stage.

Because your biggest fear is that you don’t know what to do when things go wrong, according to Susan Jeffers in her book: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. While in fact, with experience you learn that you’re always able to handle what comes next.

Also, Tony Robbins knew that experience matters. Tony figured out that most public speakers only went on stage once or twice a month back in the day.

So Tony asked himself: What if I can do 2 speaking gigs every day? 

That’s hard work. But one month would lead him to 5 years of experience in comparison to the other public speakers. And that’s why Tony Robbins became super successful with his seminars.

Because experience leads to lots of self-confidence, which leads to more action.

Benefit 3: Progress Makes You Feel Great

If you look at my first website from a results-oriented perspective, it was a complete failure. 

When you look at it from a perspective of growth, I learned a tremendous amount from my first website. Not only that, but the process of making the website in and of itself was a lot of fun.

Somehow society is focusing on the question: What if it fails?

And no one teaches the question: What will you learn and how will you feel after you did it? 

Because what we tend to forget is that failure is also a success. Failure is experience. And more experience equals more clarity and confidence, as we already discussed in the previous benefits. 

So whether you fail or succeed, you’re making progress. And making progress contributes to your happiness.

Benefit 4: Doing Things Different Helps You Stand Out

People notice you when you do things differently from everyone else. And hard work is no different than anything else.

If you’re willing to walk the extra mile, you’ll become known for that. 

Hard work is one of those aspects that can help you to stand out. And the more you stand out, the higher your chances are for getting better opportunities in the future.

It’s one of those things that help you to build your reputation. And especially when you’re new in your field of interest, hard work is one of the ways to build your profile in that industry. 

Benefit 5: Hard Work Helps You to Achieve Your Goals Faster

This is the most obvious benefit in the list and we’ve already gone over this.

The more action you take, the faster you’ll progress. You’ll accumulate failures faster, you’ll learn faster and this helps you to achieve your goals faster.

Keep in mind that your vision and the strategy are equally as important as the hard work you’re going to put in, so make sure you do both.

5 Strategies to Improve the Value of Hard Work

By now, you know that you should have a plan of action before you start working hard. And if you don’t have one yet, create one first before you continue reading.

Even if you don’t know what you like to do yet, create a plan with activities that you might enjoy. Try each of them out for a week or longer. But whatever you do, have a plan.

The following strategies will help you to make work happen. When you use these strategies often, you create the habit of hard work. 

Time to dive into each of these:

1. Focus on micro-goals
2. Do your most important task first
3. Find like-minded people
4. Review often
5. Reward yourself

Strategy 1: Focus on Your Micro-Goals

We’ve discussed the micro-goals concept in this guide on goal setting. What it comes down to is that you have performance goals for each day. 

Performance goals are the kind of goals that are in your complete control. 

Some examples are writing a blog post, creating a video, reaching out to 5 new potential clients, or sending out 3 job letters. 

These are goals that you can work on immediately. 

You can use the next strategy to do your task as soon as possible.

Strategy 2: Start Your Day with Your Most Important Task

This method is all about finding your most important task for that day and doing it first. This method is famous from the book: Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. 

It’s a great method because your self-discipline is limited each day. And since hard work isn’t always fun to start doing, it gradually becomes harder to do throughout your day.

I’ve noticed that when I don’t write early in the day, I won’t write at all. So I make this my most important task every day and do it early in the morning – before I go to work.

This also means that before work, or at least by lunchtime, you’ve already achieved something important that day. And you’ve set yourself up to feel great that day. 

Doing your most meaningful and important work early is one of the most successful strategies that I’ve used to build momentum and keep going.

That’s why creating a morning routine can be super effective in your life.

Strategy 3: Surround Yourself with Like-Minded People

It’s motivating to surround yourself with like-minded people and people that are already successful in what you try to achieve.

When you’re around people who want the same thing, you lift each other up. It’s motivating to move towards the same goal and think alike.

Being around people who don’t want to put in hard work has the opposite effect. Especially if they want you to join them. 

Because if these are your only friends, it’s difficult to say no to them. You’re a social being after all and it’s likely that you would love to have some social contact.

That’s why finding those peers that move in the same direction is super important. It really helps you when you find these groups online or in real life and connect with them.

Strategy 4: Schedule Review Moments

When you put in hours of hard work, you’ll experience a sense of accomplishment that makes you feel great. And you should feel great about taking massive amounts of action.

But you should also keep in mind that you should work smart too.

And reviewing your progress is an important step to take. 

Because when you review your journey, you can see the mistakes you made that you didn’t see while you were in the process itself.

Then you can confirm if you’re still on track with the initial plan.

And if you made mistakes or if you changed course, you can correct yourself, learn from your mistakes, and either get back on track or readjust your goals. 

Using these moments of reflection helps you to get the most out of the hard work you put in.

Or if you want to have brutal honest feedback, you can ask others for that like Elon Musk:

Don’t tell me what you like, tell me what you don’t like.

– Elon Musk

Strategy 5: Reward Yourself

Rewarding yourself promotes the habit of working hard. When you reinforce hard work with spending some off-time on an activity you enjoy, you increase the chance that you’ll go through the process again.

Habits play a crucial role to maintain your momentum and achieve goals. And rewards help you to build the habit and sustain it.

How you reward yourself comes back to self-awareness.

What do you love to do that’s not productive? Is it playing video games, watching Netflix, or listening to some music? 

Whatever it is, make your activity a reward for your efforts. 

That’s how you get the best of both worlds. And it’s the secret that makes you feel great in the short- and long-term. 

What’s next?

While hard work is valuable, it should be accompanied by smart work and self-awareness. By combining the three, you’ll achieve your goals and experience a fulfilling life.

Key takeaways of this article:

• Hard work involves putting in more (focused) hours and effort than the average person in your field.
• Hard work and smart work increase your chances of achieving success faster.
• Experience gained through hard work leads to clarity, confidence, and progress.

Dive deeper into the topic with the following resources:

• Book: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
• Book: Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins
• Course: Complete Time Management Course to Raise Personal Productivity
• Tool: Goals on Track is the goal-setting and task-management system I use to drive actions and achieve goal success. Read my review of Goals on Track.

Take action: Set a specific and achievable micro-goal as your daily task tomorrow. What can get you closer to your dreams?

Finally, subscribe below to receive valuable insights straight into your inbox to take massive action and rewrite your life story!